Monday, October 21, 2013

Week 51: Confessions of a Perfectionist

                Today is a big day. After a year of blogging and research I will be presenting my findings in approximately two hours. It has been awhile since I posted on the blog and a lot has happened. I attended the NJHP recognized event and got eliminated at the water. Again. One thing that I have learned over the last year is that horses are humbling creatures. Finn flew around the first portion of the cross-country. I let him canter along and for the first time he adjusted right off of my knees. When we came down the hill to the water he just shut down. My showjumping hadn't been stellar but I went into the start box feeling pretty confident. These jumps look small. The course looks pretty soft. No bank. Small ditch. Easy in and out through the water. Lots of galloping space. We've got this. Sadly, the little voice in my head was wrong. With horses, the moment you start thinking you know everything, you realize that you know nothing. After the event I was disappointed. Two days before I went to the event I brought Finn out schooling at a nearby farm. We cantered through the water and down a bank into the water with no problem. I felt like we finally had our water issue under control and then BOOM.


                Whenever you get eliminated at an event you suddenly become far more aware of how much eventing costs. The 200 dollar entry fee that I charged to the credit card under the presumption that it is OK to do things for myself every once in a while (OK so every other weekend) suddenly felt like a million dollars. All of this got me thinking about the people at the top of our sport that get eliminated and go home empty handed. Just to compete in a training three day it can cost upwards of 300 dollars before stabling, coaching and shipping. As a young rider it can be hard to keep things in perspective. BN looks like a 3 star to me and getting eliminated at a recognized event feels a lot like losing Rolex. However, I don’t know those feelings. This last weekend was the Fair Hill International event in Elkton, Maryland. Going into the CCI 3 star competition two very competitive riders, Sally Cousins and Sinead Haplin, were looking like they might just crack the top three. Both Sally and Sinead were place respectively after dressage and both Sally and Sinead fell off on day two. For both of these riders falls are uncommon. And for both of these riders this competition was to be a qualifier for other competition.  It is hard for me to understand how these riders must have felt. Sally had a second horse to ride in the 3 star and her fall forced her to withdraw Sue. Sinead was coming off a win at the Plantation Field International 3 star and was set up to place well at Fair Hill.

                As riders we have expectations. We push our horses, our wallets and our bodies to perform as perfectly as possible. We spend cold November mornings shipping horses hours a way to compete and we set out with a positive attitude. We walk our courses, tell everybody we are feeling ready even if we aren't and leave the start box intent on having that perfect ride. The constant search for the perfect ride more than not results in disappointment. So how do we deal with this? How does a person deal with the fact that they have far less control over their performance then they would like to think? When you leave the start box do it for you. Win or lose it is all for the experience. At my first event with Corofin in May of this year my trainer looked at me and said, “eliminated or not, if you get around 5 jumps or all 10 that is 5 or 10 more jumps then you would have jumped otherwise.”  It hurts to lose entry fees, to fall off, to get eliminated on fence one, to have your horse stop at the water and try to run backwards (thanks Finn) but every time we leave the confines of our own barns, of our comfort zones, of our indoor arenas, we push ourselves and our horses to experience new things and ultimately become better riders and horse-people. Just because you finished on a letter not a number, doesn't mean you didn't learn something new.